Wednesday 25 October 2017

BEST OF THE BAD MEN #1

Like many of the western writers I’ve corresponded with, I didn’t get into westerns from reading the kind of novels I’d eventually write. I was initially hooked by what I watched, on the cinema and on TV, during my boyhood in the 1960s. And entering the world of the screen western was like joining a family, peopled by familiar faces. Actors re-occurred in the same roles – the same leading men, from A-listers like John Wayne and Gary Cooper to ‘lower-birth’ leads like Audie Murphy and Rory Calhoun. The same leading ladies – either the ‘good girls’ who the hero should marry or the ‘bad girls’ (who often worked in saloons) who he definitely shouldn’t! The same ‘sidekicks’ – one thinks of Noah Beery Jr. and Slim Pickens. A wonderful roster of character actors – Ward Bond, John McIntire, Walter Brennan, Ben Johnson and many more. Some even seemed to corner the market in particular supporting roles – if the town doctor or storekeeper wasn’t played by Frank Ferguson, it was usually Vaughn Taylor. All of whom deserve recognition and blogs of their own.

Vaughn Taylor the eternal store keeper
But perhaps most enjoyable of all were the villains.
Westerns are of course morality plays and if the hero represented the best in people, they needed a foil, an opponent, to represent the very worst; worthy opponents against whom the hero has to be tested. And there were plenty of very capable actors who regularly stepped up to the plate to do just that. They were often as enjoyable, and quite often more enjoyable, than the heroes.
One of the misconception about the western, held against it by its detractors, is that it’s too simplistic, 100% pure heroes up against villains without a single redeeming feature. Anyone who thinks that has obviously never watched many westerns! Western heroes are often flawed, vulnerable or conflicted – one thinks of James Stewart in ‘The Naked Spur,’ Van Heflin in the original ‘3.10 for Yuma’ or John Wayne in ‘The Searchers.’ As for the villains, sometimes they’re clearly good men gone bad, or bad men who have their saving graces – for example Glenn Ford as the outlaw leader in the original ‘3.10 for Yuma.’ Sometimes they’re just irredeemably villainous and loving it! Even then, however, they have their likable aspects.

Glenn Ford in the original ‘3.10 for Yuma.’
The best fictional villains – in westerns or anything – are, in my opinion, almost never petty or cowardly. They are often almost as competent, resourceful, charismatic and intelligent as the heroes they’re up against. Sometimes they could almost be the hero’s evil twin, the flip side of the same coin, and often possess dangerous charm and humour. The difference between them is, usually when the chips are down, when they have to choose between serving themselves or the interests of others, the hero chooses the greater good, the villain cynically chooses himself.
There are so many splendid western bad guys that I realised one blog could never do them justice. So I decided to do two. Next time I’ll discuss ‘the hateful eight’ – the eight very best western villains, in my opinion. Meanwhile here’s a brief canter through the ranks of wrong-doers who didn’t make my final ‘worst of the west’ cut, but gave excellent villain none the less. It’s selective and doesn’t claim to be exhaustive, or else this would be the longest blog in history!
I’m not discussing bad girls – that should be a blog all to itself. Nor would I include Native American chiefs. For a long time Native American leaders were routinely characterised as villains – Chief Scar in ‘The Searchers’ for one.  Attitudes changed however, and they began to be depicted as patriots and even heroes fighting to save their peoples, for example in the 50s biopics of Indian leaders from Cochise to Crazy Horse.
Nor would I include military opponents.  General Santa Anna became the ultimate hate figure on the Texas frontier after the slaughters he ordered in 1836 at The Alamo and Goliad. His defenders, however, would argue he was a patriot trying to preserve his nation against foreign aggression. I’m not going to go there!

Ruben Padilla as General Santa Anna in ‘THE ALAMO’ (1960.)
‘Outriders’ on my list of villains would be actors who more normally played good guys who made surprisingly successful forays into villainy. Audiences gasped at the sight of Henry Fonda, ruthlessly gunning down women and children in ‘Once Upon a Time in the West.’ The same man who’d played the stalwart and incorruptible Wyatt Earp in ‘My Darling Clementine!’
Burt Lancaster gave a tremendous turn as a ‘laughing villain’ in 'Vera Cruz', even dying with his trademark grin on his lips! Lancaster illustrates a characteristic of the bad guy that makes them fun to write – their unpredictability. They do what they like, therefore you never know what they’re going to do next. One minute Lancaster is siding Gary Cooper, the next he’s treacherously conspiring against him.

Slim Pickens, usually a likable side-kick, makes a highly effective slimy villain in ‘One Eyed Jacks.’

And Rory Calhoun seems to be enjoying his turn as a bad guy in ‘River of No Return.’ Like a number of western villains he has a girlfriend (in this case Marilyn Monroe) who believes he’s capable of reforming from his wicked ways. She persuades him to talk to his enemy (Robert Mitchum) the next time they meet, instead of trying to kill him. Rory agrees. “All right.” he says, “I’ll talk to him.” He then takes out his gun and checks if it’s loaded. Monroe asks “What do you need that for?” To which Rory replies: “In case he’s hard of hearing!”
Bad guys often got the best lines!

Rory Calhoun and Marilyn Monroe
Amongst the many memorable western villains on screen were: Walter Brennan as the evil Old Man Clanton in ‘My Darling Clementine’; Robert Duvall as the outlaw John Wayne hunts in ‘True Grit’; Gene Hackman as the corrupt lawman in ‘Unforgiven’; Karl Malden as another villainous lawman in ‘One Eyed Jacks’; Warren Oates and John Anderson as two homicidal brothers in ‘Ride the High Country’; Skip Homeier as the sly back-shooter in ‘The Gunfighter;’ Henry Silva as the cold-eyed and clearly unstable killer in ‘The Tall T’; and Jack Elam, Claude Akins, John Dehner, Gene Evans, Alex Montoya, Ernest Borgnine, Leo Gordon, Robert J. Wilke and Victor Jory in many film and TV appearances. And many more!
I always found the lean-faced James Anderson a particularly villainous-looking villain. He was effective as the brutal cavalryman in ‘Little Big Man’ although perhaps his best depiction of evil was in a non-western ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’

James Anderson in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’
Two actors who almost made it onto my ‘hateful eight’ list were Lee Marvin and Donald Pleasance.
British actor Donald Pleasance was an unusual choice to play a western villain but proved to be inspired casting. He’s Charlton Heston’s nemesis in ‘Will Penny,’ a fire-and- brimstone preacher with a brood of sons as psychopathic as he is. Pleasance manages the trick of playing an over-the-top character without (quite) going over the top.


Lee Marvin frequently played western bad guys but capped it all with his performance in ‘The Man who shot Liberty Valance.’ In a film which is an allegory for the passing of the frontier, his Valance is more than a villain; he represents the flamboyance, savagery and unrestrained violence of the Wild West. When he’s felled by a bullet, it marks the end of an era. He’s an equally enjoyable bad guy in ‘The Comancheros’ where he again shows great chemistry with John Wayne.


If your favourite western wrong-doer isn’t here, don’t worry. Come along to my next blog on the subject – BEST OF THE BAD MEN #2 - and you may find them among ‘the hateful eight’, my eight most favourite western villains! Link to BEST OF THE BAD MEN #2 here: https://andrewmcbrideauthor.blogspot.com/2017/11/best-of-bad-men-2-hateful-eight.html

Wednesday 18 October 2017

AUTHOR FAVOURITES: BAD DAY FOR THE HANGMAN by JEFF BRELAND

Jeff Breland writes westerns, ghost stories and thrillers – and sometimes hybrids of all three.
He’s another author who likes the first thing he wrote best of his work – in Jeff’s case this is the first in his ‘bounty hunter’ series BAD DAY FOR THE HANGMAN. This features Jake Stone who’s a bounty hunter in everything but name.
In the company of a Mexican girl he pursues a ruthless killer across northern New Mexico.
It’s curious how bounty hunters in western fiction are often ‘good guys’: STEVE McQUEEN bookended his career in westerns as a bounty hunter, starting off in 1958 in the TV series WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, and, in his very last western in 1980, playing perhaps the west’s most famous bounty hunter – even if no one called him that – TOM HORN.


Steve McQueen as Tom Horn


The real Tom Horn

And both RANDOLPH SCOTT in ‘Ride Lonesome


and CLINT EASTWOOD as ‘the man with no name’ are, at least in theory, on the side of the angels.


Despite the popularity of bounty hunters in western fiction, evidence for historical ones remains scanty. As well as Tom Horn, there’s CHARLIE SIRINGO (1855 – 1928) a Texas cowboy and author who, at the age of 36, joined the Pinkerton’s Detective Agency.


He began operating undercover, a relatively new technique at the time, and infiltrated gangs of robbers and rustlers, making more than 100 arrests. Reluctantly, he went undercover to undermine the Western Federation of Miners in the strike they held in northern Idaho in 1892. In the late 1890s, posing as a gunman on the run from the law for murder, he infiltrated BUTCH CASSIDY’s Wild Bunch.


The Wild Bunch in 1900: Front row 1st left THE SUNDANCE KID; farthest right: BUTCH CASSIDY; Back row, 2nd right: KID CURRY

Several members of the gang were captured or killed as a result of the information he gathered, including KID CURRY, eventually killed in a shoot-out in 1904. So Siringo was a bounty hunter more likely to bring a criminal down by digging away in the background, rather than by a bullet in a face-to-face encounter.


 Kid Curry

Award-winning author JACQUIE ROGERS (who writes for the Prairie Rose Publications stable as I do) has produced a fascinating blog on bounty hunters here: http://jacquierogers.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/bounty-hunters-in-old-west.html

Reviews for BAD DAY FOR THE HANGMAN:

‘Breland has crafted a great character in Marshal Stone… An action packed book with a good plot…. This book was very exciting with twists and turns… I just kept going way past my bedtime because I couldn't figure out what was going to happen.’ 

Wednesday 11 October 2017

AUTHOR FAVOURITES: JASON KILKENNY’S GUN by KIT PRATE

Kit Prate (a Sundown Press author like me) tells me her favourite of her westerns is JASON KILKENNY'S GUN, now available on Sundown Press. Kit describes it as ‘a coming of age story; a young boy falls under the spell of a notorious bounty hunter without realizing the consequences for his family.’

In JASON KILKENNY'S GUN the bounty hunter is Rance Savage, still seeking revenge on the man who partially crippled him 20 years earlier; his young admirer is 15 year old Josh Kincaid. But then Savage finds the man he’s been searching for so long…

Historical evidence for Old West bounty hunters is scant, but they’re certainly popular in western fiction, being portrayed by everyone from Randolph Scott (‘Ride Lonesome’)


to James Stewart (‘The Naked Spur’)


to Steve McQueen in the TV series ‘Wanted Dead or Alive.’



The theme of a youngster hero-worshipping a bounty hunter made me think of Henry Fonda (the bounty hunter) and Anthony Perkins in ‘The Tin Star’ (1957.)



Anthony Perkins & Henry Fonda in 'The Tin Star'

Tom Horn 


and Charlie Siringo


are two historical westerners who could almost be described as bounty hunters.
There were of course scalp-hunters in the Old West, men who went after bounty offered for Native American hair. Men like John Johnson, who carried out the infamous 1837 massacre of Apaches at Santa Rita, New Mexico, and James Kirker, an Irishman who operated in Mexico and went after Apache scalps c. 1840.


James Kirker

One reviewer on Kit Prate generally: ‘…The best in the business -- best plots, best characters, best action, and the unexpected details and gestures that vault the prose right off the page.’

Other reviewers on 
JASON KILKENNY'S GUN:
‘Your jaw will be hanging at the storytelling ability.’

‘Awesome… very enjoyable read.’

Wednesday 4 October 2017

AUTHOR FAVOURITES: HANGTOWN CREEK by JOHN PUTNAM

John Putnam tells me his favourite of his own novels is his first (something I hear repeatedly from authors.) This is HANGTOWN CREEK, the first Tom Marsh adventure: a story of adventure, romance, and coming of age in the early days of the California gold rush. Here ‘the majestic landscapes of Brett Harte's California unite with Larry McMurtry's epic old west realism.’

14-year old Tom Marsh and his family leave their farm to seek their fortune in the newly discovered gold fields. Meanwhile two ex-soldiers rescue a woman from a villainous saloon keeper, who sets off in pursuit.  Fate brings these characters together, where both opportunity and death will clash.

The California Gold Rush began on January 24th 1848 when James W. Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill at Coloma, California. At this point California was in the process of being taken from Mexico after the Mexican War, a home for Mexican residents, American settlers and Native American tribes.
The 1848 gold rush only drew prospectors from California, Oregon, Hawaii and the nearer parts of Latin America. In 1849 gold-seekers from the eastern parts of the United States flooded in, the fabled '’49-ers.'


Goldrush prospectors

An estimated 300,000 people came to California during the gold rush, California became a state without ever being a territory, and many of the Native American population perished through disease, starvation and violence. Meanwhile lawlessness flourished, until countered first by vigilantes and then by conventional law and order bodies.
Originally Dry Diggin’s, Hangtown bore its grim name from 1849-1854, because of the numerous hangings that took place in the area. Later its name was changed to the more welcoming Placerville.   



Hangtown in 1849

The gold rush has only occasionally featured in TV and movies. The fabled Mexican bandit Joaquin Murieta, the so-called ‘Robin Hood of El Dorado’ was played by Ricardo Montalban in the TV movie ‘Desperate Mission’.



The Outcasts of Poker Flat’ is a film based on a Brett Harte gold rush story.


Dale Robertson & Cameron Mitchell in The Outcasts of Poker Flat’ 

The musical ‘Paint Your Wagon’ where Lee Marvin follows his wandering star, also has a gold rush setting.


 The last time I looked at Amazon.com 48 of 64 reviews for HANGTOWN CREEK were 5 star!
REVIEWS:
‘John's writing is so fresh you are always simply in the now with his characters. …The pace, rich characters and smooth writing voice and style carried me along and kept me reading into the wee hours. Wonderful storytelling.’

‘Vividly written, fast-paced novel.’

‘The author has created a suspenseful, dramatic, and rough-hewn fictional tale.’ 

‘Excellent storytelling, memorable characters… a gripping tale.’

Masterfully told… a suspense story with a satisfyingly deep plot…’

https://www.amazon.com/Hangtown-Creek-California-Marsh-Adventure-ebook/dp/B01H2BUHY8